Time to focus on what counts

Brother UK recently conducted a survey of 501 IT leaders at UK SMEs. With many workers furloughed and hiring frozen, productivity has never been more important. In a series of articles this autumn, we are using the findings of the survey to see how UK businesses can improve productivity.

Our previous article addressed how smart leaders are investing to improve productivity. Here, we focus in on the investments that count the most, and can boost your business from survive to thrive mode during the coronavirus pandemic.

New ways of working

The changes that the whole world has seen during 2020 have been generation changing, and business is no different. While British businesses had begun a shift towards more flexible working arrangements even before the pandemic, the enforced changes and lockdowns have acted as a catalyst for making that process a lot quicker.

Reassuringly, Brother’s survey found that the majority of British SMEs are already underway with, or are readying plans to ramp up their IT investments. Underpinning this investment is the goal of improving productivity.

Technology and productivity

Of those IT leaders surveyed, it was clear that what counts is that users can continue to work as productively as possible – and in some cases even more so.

Four out of five of those leaders had active plans to invest in new technologies to support this drive for more productive working. So much so, that more than half (57%) also said that remote working has already provided productivity gains in their business. As a result, a comprehensive 82% stated that further technology investments are planned to support leaders and facilitate home working even further.

Focusing on what counts

Having identified technology as a means to underpin productivity gains, the leaders were then surveyed more specifically on what technologies would be the priority for their valuable budgets. Remote working tools (84%) and collaboration software (80%) came out on top, with modern hardware including printers also ranking highly on the list (75%).

It was also refreshing to see that not all the IT leaders felt the need to think only in emergency mode – far from it. In fact, 79% of those surveyed stated that the desire to experiment with tech was one of the main driving factors in their firms’ planned strategic IT investments over the next 12 months.

Find out more

In our next article in this series we will explore the SMB productivity puzzle in more detail. In the meantime, you can find out more with Brother UK’s handy guide – “a practical guide to productivity”.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.

 

Have you invested smartly in your print estate?

“Doing more with less” is one of those terms that has been around for years. For so long in fact, there is a risk that it stops meaning anything. In fact, a search for “doing more with less” on Google brings up 2.4 billion results.

In this article, we will put a little more meat on the bone, and use a recent survey of 501 IT decision makers by Brother UK to examine how investment in your company’s print estate can enhance productivity during these times.

During the coronavirus pandemic, many businesses have needed to look for creative ways of enhancing the productivity of existing employees rather than hiring and creating new roles. With more and more pressure on people to work from home and balance family life with work life, this is not an easy task.

The survey found that awareness of the benefits of enhancing productivity are widespread and well understood. Almost three quarters (77% to be precise) of those businesses leaders surveyed have systems in place to identify opportunities to improve and eliminate wastage. This is real life “doing more with less” in practice.

Yet this still leaves 23% of businesses that have not identified processes and systems to try to improve from within.

Improving productivity is a key focus for SMEs.

An interesting finding in the survey was that 93% of the business leaders surveyed recognised the need to improve productivity. However, what practical steps businesses are taking to improve productivity varies by company size.
82% of the companies surveyed by Brother UK with more than 500 employees monitor or measure productivity. This number reduces to 77% of the companies with less than 500 employees.

Productivity and investment in your print estate

As we know, there can be a gap between recognising and saying something, and actually doing it in practice. While Brother UK’s survey results showed that SMEs are quite clear that there are gains to be made through productivity, only 21% are focussing on making additional IT investment to address it.

Brother – designed for productivity

Legacy printers can be one of the biggest time constraints and administrative burdens for SME employees. From trying to print from slower machines to the time spent on ordering supplies and carrying out maintenance, ageing printers really can be a burden to productivity.

Read more about Brother’s cloud-based managed print services that offer benefits such as automated supplies ordering and remote maintenance.

In our next article in this series we will explore in more detail how smart leaders are investing in productivity. In the meantime, you can find out more with Brother UK’s handy guide – “Solving the SMB productivity puzzle”.

Read more about how you can boost productivity your organisation in Brother’s Guide to Improving Your Print Productivity.

Find out more

Give us a call on 01274 396 213 to find out how Complete IT Systems and Brother can help your business. Alternatively have a look at our main Brother information page here.